Alwyn W. Turner London: Arum, 2008, h/b, £20 Punk monetarism The 15 years from 1969 to 1984 convulsed British society and pulverised its economy. By the end of this period, the post-war settlement, which had been assumed to last more or less indefinitely, was in ruins and the economic and social order we inhabit today … Read more
David Hambling London: Constable, 2005, £12.99, p/b This is clearly laid out, with a few key scientific ideas illustrated by simple but effective black and white figures. The style is pitched just right for a general audience so one doesn’t get swamped in technical details, while it does a good job of explaining the … Read more
John Carter. Feral House, Portland (USA), 1999. Available in the UK from Counter Productions, P0 Box 556, London SE5 ORL , £15.99 plus £1.50p pp. The March Fortean Times launched this in some style, aping the book’s 1950s SF cover and giving it a respectful five page review. With the film rights sold and preparations … Read more
Waking up the incredible economic, political and social illusions of the Blair legacy Larry Elliot and Dan Atkinson London: Constable, 2007, p/b, £7.99 This appeared just as the last issue of Lobster was going to print and has been widely reviewed since then. Extracts were published in The Guardian and The Mail on Sunday, … Read more
Philip Hoare, Duckworth Press, London, 1997, £16.99 The opening of MI5’s archives up to and including 1919 gives historians and researchers the chance to exhume the genesis of the right in British domestic politics as well as the early activities of the secret state. Despite its title (Oscar died in 1900) Hoare dips quite a … Read more
An interesting piece by Mark Hollingsworth appeared in Punch of 23 May-5 June 2001, ‘Spooks in the House’, on intelligence and security personnel who become MPs. Some of the material was familiar but less well known were Raymond Fletcher, and Le Cercle. Fletcher was a Labour MP who was witch-hunted by MI5 as a KGB … Read more
Definitions? Or Whoops! A paradigm An American magazine called Mondo 2000 ran an amusing piece called ‘The Conspiracy Top Ten’. In it ‘Zarkov’ offered this definition: ‘Conspiracies may be better understood as organizations pursuing their own ends, who desire no publicity as to their true objectives and methods.’ Which sounds interesting at first then dissolves … Read more
Public relations, more usually referred to these days as ‘communications’, is a method used by organisations to explain themselves or issues, or sell a product/message/strategy. To create/manipulate their audiences’ various external environments so that these can prevail, sophisticated organisations firstly recognise competitor or negative PR; secondly, they counter it. The means by which they do … Read more
The Verney case Y Cyfamodwr is the paper of the Welsh Nationalist organisation whose initials are CCCYCRh, but about whom I know nothing. The issue for Winter 1993/4 contained a piece on a mysterious, now abandoned, site in the middle of a forest in Wales. The site used to be guarded by armed troops, was … Read more
Spy Wars: Moles, mysteries and deadly games Tennent H. Begley London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, h/b, £18.99 Begley was one of James Angleton’s allies in CIA counterintelligence and this book is the Angletonian view of the Nosenko case, one of the touchstones or causes célèbres of the CIA in the post-war … Read more
